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Power Struggle/Transcript
WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW Remember these things, huh? The paper shearer. Teacher used to get me to trim all her test papers while the other kids learned stuff. I always took that as a compliment, didn't realise she'd given up on me. But if you ever see one of these for sale at maybe a yard sale or art auction or anything, you pick it up. And I'll tell you why. Somewhere a man is going hungry, and it's all because he finds himself alone in a strange place... A kitchen. And in his confusion, he can't separate the precious, life-giving hotdog from his frozen brothers. Well, no more. Heheheh. And for dessert... [ cheers and applause ] [ ♪♪♪ ] [ cheers and applause ] thank you very much. No, no, I appreciate that. Well, big news at the lodge this week -- actually, possum lodge has been singled out for recognition by the local town council. Oh yeah. Apparently we are the number 1 source of air pollution in the entire possum lake area. And they got the satellite pictures to prove it. We're number 1! We're number 1! Uncle red! Uncle red! I got a solution to the pollution problem. Have you ever heard of the kyoto protocol? Is that like the honda accord? No, no, the kyoto protocol, it's an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Why would I care? I don't have a greenhouse. Greenhouse gas emissions, they're created by burning fossil fuels, you know, lawn mowers and outboard motors and leaf blowers and snowblowers and possum vans. Anything that burns gas. I'm not shuttin' off the possum van when it takes me 45 minutes to get it started. Yeah, I know, that's the good part, okay? With the kyoto agreement you're allowed to trade off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so so... What you do, if you have a lot of pollution in one area you can balance that by cutting pollution in another area. Ohhhhh! Ohohoho! And next to the lodge, you know who the biggest polluter is? Gotta be stinky peterson. No, no, no, it's not, it's that coal-burning electrical generating station up at port asbestos. So, you know how we're gonna satisfy the kyoto protocol? We plead insanity? No! No! We're gonna make a windmill! We're gonna generate our own power. And if we build it big enough, we can generate enough power for the whole town. You mean to say we'd get free power, and be able to sell power to the rest of the town, and be able to make something huge and dangerous all at the same time?! Yeah! Well, I think you've really done it this time, harold! Well, thank you very much. You may turn into a man yet. Don't spoil it. It's time for the possum lodge word game! [ cheers and applause ] tonight's winner receives this coupon for two tickets to the possum lake little theatre production of... The best little warehouse in texas. It's the story of a woman and her rise to the top and the forklift operator who tried to put her there. All right, cover your ears, ed. Okay, red, you've got 30 seconds to get ed frid to say this word... Yeah, all right, winston. And... Go! Okay, ed, if you get a call to capture a ferocious bear that's on the loose, the first thing you have to do is... Give it a really big head start. Okay, no, no, no, um, this is a word that stands for what the bear leaves behind on the ground. I'm not saying that word on television. Yeah, I'm talkin' about the paws. Oh! Long. Yeah, the bear takes quite a long pause to make a pile that big. Almost outta time here, red. Yeah, okay. Okay, ed, think train... Attack. What? Yeah, most people train their dogs to attack. To attack me. At least that's been my track record. There we go!!! Welcome to the expert portion of the show. This is where we address the three little words that men find so hard to say... Audience: I don't know! That's true, isn't it? Okay, today's letter goes as follows... "dear experts..." lalalala! "lately my teenage son has been hanging out at the mall, "smoking cigarettes and slacking off. "my husband won't discipline him because he does exactly the same thing. "is there some way I can encourage my son to be a better person?" well, you know, teenagers are kinda like firecrackers. Your best bet is just to stand way back and cover your eyes. No, no, no, that's just ignoring your responsibility. Yes, it is. Uncle red, you can't just stop being a parent. You know, I would have to agree with harold on this point, mr. Green. And as you know, it hurts me deeply to say that. You have to involve your parents if you're a teenager. Like, I remember when I was a teenager, it would've been so great to be able to talk to any one of my dads. Yes, yes, mike is absolutely right. You have to keep open the lines of communication. Yes, and you have to be very aware of who your son is hanging out with. Especially his girlfriend. Well, you never had that problem, did you, harold? My girlfriends were a bad influence on me, you know that? My life would've been totally different if I'd dated nuns. So would theirs, I'm thinkin'. You know, I think parents have more influence over their kids than they think. Because if parents respected their kids the kids wouldn't have anything to rebel against and they wouldn't be hanging out with the wrong crowd. Yeah, see, my life went downhill coz I hung out with the wrong crowd when I was a teenager. And then later when I went to prison, my social circle continued to be uninspiring. Really? But that's my point. That's my point, though. See? Nobody ever gets anywhere by hanging out with a bunch of losers. Oh yeah? It got me a television show. [ laughter, cheers and applause ] let me show you what happened to me the other night. Batteries went dead in my tv remote. That happens to me a lot, especially during the playoffs. When I popped out one of the batteries, it flew through the air -- again, this is just a reenactment, and dropped right into a can of root beer that I was forcing myself to drink coz there was nothing else in the fridge. Imagine my surprise at what happened next. And when I touched the can, I got a shock! Yes, very similar to what just happened in our reenactment. So then I thought, hey, why don't I hook up my test light and see what happens, huh? [ buzzing ] well, now I started to get pretty excited. Especially after the feeling came back into my hand. So I figured I have a source of pretty cheap energy. And all I need is a bunch of dead batteries. I looked the whole thing up in the encyclopedi-odiotica and what had happened was the acid from the pop was acting as an electrolyte, and that was dissolving the chemicals in the battery, generating an electrical charge. So today on handyman corner, I'm gonna use this new knowledge -- accidental knowledge, really, as most of mine is, to make myself an environmentally friendly electric truck. Okay, my first step was to install a kiddy pool, slide and all, into the bed of my pick-up. I got her filled up with water, now all I have to do is add the acid. I'm gonna go with vinegar -- or as we call it around here, buster hadfield's homemade wine. But you know, that's not gonna give us enough juice, so I'm gonna throw in a little caustic soda. That's drain cleaner to you and me. Tax write-off to winston. So he'll never miss this. [ coughing ] okay, I took the motor out of bernice's washing machine. Use that as my power plant. Luckily the original gas engine had dropped out when I slammed over the speed bump outside the seniors' home. So one of these cables becomes my ground wire, and the other one here, that's my live wire. Now, for my speed control I wired the motor into this dimmer switch off the dining room chandelier. This is the future you're lookin' at right here, folks. So remember, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. [ applause ] you know, whenever you see a married couple telling a story together to a third party, there's gonna be trouble. The one person telling the story, usually the wife, she kinda becomes like the prosecutor. And the one who the story's about, always the husband, well, now, he becomes kind of like the defence attorney. And the listener, usually a friend or a neighbour, well, that person becomes the judge and the jury. And these trials have no rules. You don't have to present evidence or provide witnesses or even tell the truth. I mean, the two fake lawyers -- first of all, they start with their summations. And then they just kinda interrupt each other whenever they want, trying to get the judge to see it their way. And the poor judge has got no hard evidence to go on, so they just end up siding with whoever they like better. Then their friendship goes out the window. So I tell you what... Whenever you and your wife have a story to tell, never tell it together. Let her tell it her way to her friends and you tell it your way to your friends. Neither one of ya is telling the story the way it actually happened anyway. So it doesn't really matter. And if you ever get into a situation where by accident you end up telling the story together to somebody, ask for a recess, take your wife aside, settle out of court. Remember, I'm pulling for ya; we're all in this together. When the air around your place is so green it glows, and your once friendly neighbours have all become foes, call me and I'll be there, quick with my hose, no need for directions, I'll just follow my nose. Well, we got our windmill up and runnin'. And most of the town of possum lake is using our power. Good thing we had all those jumper cables. Of course, when you switch from coal to wind power, you know, you get the odd dip. It's all right. What? All right. There's not much of a breeze today, uncle red. Harold, just relax. Nobody can push us around anymore. Wanna know why? Because we're the electric company now, harold. We got power. We got problems. [ phone ringing ] how come the phone still works? Because we're not the phone company? Hello, possum lodge power company, what can I do for you? Okay, yeah, did you check the fuse box? Well, maybe you'd think about checking that before you just automatically blame the power company! All right. Yeah, you have one too, bye. [ phone ringing ] as automated voice: You have reached the possum lodge power company. For service in english, please hand up. Red, the power's been out at my store for four hours! Traffic lights are out, my cash register stopped working. Moose thomson's stuck on the escalator. You can't get stuck on an escalator. You just walk down. Not when you're moose thomson. He's got his butt wedged between the hand rails. Plus my freezer's off, so all the ice cream's melted! I'm giving it away! Oh wow! Excellent! I'm giving it away at 10% off. I owe ya. You know what the problem is? It's not the windmill, coz the mill part works fine as long as the wind is going. See, the problem is as soon as the wind dies off, we got no power. Take it easy on the ice cream, harold. You're gonna get yourself a brain freeze. No, it's good. I like ice cream and I got some ice cream. It's good, good, so I'm eatin' it. Hey, I just got an -- is your car here? No, I walked. That was close. I thought he did. Okay, here's what we do... We hook up your car and my possum van and any other vehicles we can find, we hook the drive wheels onto the windmill, and we get her spinning that way. That's how we generate the power. All in favour say "aye." aye. Aye. Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi! Red: We don't have a casino in the possum lake area, so we just sometimes hook up a game of bingo ourselves. I thought the three of them were all playing, but it was actually just walter and mike because dalton had a crossword. I didn't realise that was a crossword he had going. And I was offering a pretty fancy prize... A fishing vest with everything you'd ever want on it, and the boys are pretty excited over that. And we have to make everything ourselves. We had a leaf blower blowing the -- we got ping pong balls there. Anyway, the number comes down, and I pick her up there, and it's g-53. So I just mark her on the board and then the boys check their cards. Well, walter and mike check their cards. I've got another one here: B-12. All right, mark that up on the -- it's like a vitamin. But then mike doesn't have it, he sees walter -- he's gonna -- and then bang! So now of course the bingo balls are everywhere, so I got an idea. You guys go find the balls, and any ball you find I'll register the number, and if you've got that number, then -- so we can carry on with our game. That way I didn't have to do anything. So mike's out there looking, and he sees a bingo ball, he picks it up all excited, he realises it's not a number he has on any of his bingo cards, but then he remembers he does have something... A marker. So I-30 suddenly becomes... N-38. N-38! So I mark that down on the chart, and then walter's carrying on there, and he sees a ball, and he picks it up, but there are no num -- for some reason the numbers must have come off when it -- I don't know why it -- oh, yeah, I see. Right. And dalton is still working on the crossword. Meanwhile, there were still a couple of balls still flying along and they roll down a hole, and mike's hot on the trail. He's all excited. And then he's somewhat less excited. That can happen. And walter saw another ball, kind of had mud all over it, and it turns out it wasn't actually a ball, it was the tip of something. Some kind of sign... "danger quicksand." that's not a good sign. Anyway, we got walter out of there and back to the table, and I was just recounting on all the numbers, going through them all, and they were checking them all off. But nobody was getting a winner. Meanwhile, dalton was working -- he was looking for a 5-letter word for "victory." he went over it in his mind, then he comes up with it. And he yells out: Bingo! And of course these guys just rip up their cards, they figured they'd lost. They crunch them all up and walk away in disgust. So dalton comes over, shows me he was actually doing a crossword. So what I said to him was, please, help me on with my prize. [ applause ] you know, my wife's real good about letting me have a few buddies over to watch the football game or go for the indoor pizza-eating record or whatever, one of the things she asks is that I get them to use coasters. And believe me, these are guys who can't afford another strike against them. So I tried using some of these thick coasters, just spreading them around the table in kind of a random order. But then the guys kinda get their glasses half on, half off. Next thing you know, you got a tidal wave of beer coming off the coffee table, intoxicating the dog. Then I tried a deal where I glued my old irish rover albums to the bottom of a few glasses. Problem there was, every time the guys took a drink they thought they were going blind. Then I got the idea of cutting the lids out of tin cans coz they're not too big, but they're nice and thin. But still I needed a way to make sure they're always under the glasses. So I glued a fridge magnet to the inside of the bottom. Idiot proof -- or even better... Idiot ready. Oh, and one more thing. You know, people who don't use coasters are the same kind of people who tend to leave stuff lying around when they're gone. Well, you know what they say... The best ideas are the ones that pay for themselves. Okay, we're all set to fire up our motorized windmill. We've got about seven vehicles powering the unit. We had to lay a couple of the suvs on their sides, but they're used to that. Now, harold insisted that we hook all the engines up to this remote starter. That way nobody has to stand too close, which saves you having to be called as a witness later. We good to go there, harold? Harold, are we good to go? Good to go, uncle red! [ engines starting ] [ wind blowing ] shut it off! Shut it off! Harold, it's fine. It's absolutely fine. This is how we should've generated the power in the first place. We don't need wind, we don't need storage batteries. We're completely self-sufficient. We're gettin' power for free! Oh! Are we getting gasoline for free too? Well, what does gasoline have to do with it? [ engines sputtering ] why is there always a catch?! Hey, red, good news! What? City hall says we have the best air quality in 10 years! The lodge is back in the good books! All right! How can that be? You're polluting more than ever! Oh, I know why. It's coz of the windmill. We've blown all our pollution up to port asbestos! You know, harold, you never wanna be down wind of a big polluter. And you'd know that if you'd ever gone on a canoe trip. [ possum lodge ] meeting time. Yeah, you guys go ahead. I'll be right down. Oh man. All right, if my wife is watching, I'll be coming straight home after the meeting. I'm outta power and low on gas, but I'm hopin' you'll wait up, coz I'm lookin' for a spark or two still left somewhere in my life! And to the rest of you thanks for watching. On behalf of myself and harold and the whole gang up here at possum lodge, keep your stick on the ice. [ cheers and applause ] take a seat, sit down. All rise! Quando omni flunkus moritati. Sit down. All right, men, bow your heads for the man's prayer. I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to... I guess. All right, I have some terrible news for you... I'm washing my hands of the whole windmill project. We've gone back to paying for our electricity.